“It is an error to suppose that when a physicist talks about science he is bound to be more reliable than a so-called layman who has taken the trouble to inform himself and to think. For if scientific specialization means anything, it means that the physicist has final authority only on such questions of physics as fall within his specialty.” (Jacques Barzun, Science: The Glorious Entertainment)

“You will be wise to close your ears. But wax will not be enough to stop them up; you need some tighter seal than what Ulysses is said to have used on his crew. That voice they feared was alluring, but it was not the voice of the public. This voice that you should fear does not sound from a single crag, it echoes around you from every direction and from every land. Sail on, then, not past a single spot where treacherous pleasures threaten, but past all the cities in the world.” (Seneca, Letters on Ethics, Letter 31)

“We do not meet death all at once, we move toward it bit by bit. We die every day, for every day some part of life is taken from us. Even when we are still growing, our life is shrinking. We lost our infancy, then childhood, then youth. All our time was lost in the moment of passage, right up to yesterday, and even today is divided with death as it goes by. As the water clock dies not empty out its last drop only but also whatever dripped through before, so our last hour of existence is not the only time we die but just the only time we finish dying.” (Seneca, Letters on Ethics, Letter 24)

Young Ligurinus,
Still cruelly swaggering with the gifts of Venus,
The day’s not far
When, stealing unawares, a beard will mar
That debonair
Insouciance; that shoulder-rippling hair
Fall; and the skin,
Now pinker than the pinkest petal in
A bed of roses,
Suffer a rude and bristling metamorphosis.
You’ll say, “Alas”
(Seeing the changed face in the looking-glass),
“Why as a boy
Did I spurn the wisdom that I now enjoy?
How now graft back
To wiser cheeks the rosiness that they lack?”

(Horace, Ode XI, Book IV, Michie)

By the President of Tel Aviv University, Apr 18, 2020: “Allow me to deviate from the protocol and add a few more words. One of the common failures of a cost-benefit analysis is to highlight the obvious and visible damages, while ignoring or diminishing the importance of other, no less serious, damage that are not foreseen at first sight. In our case, too, caution must be taken not to underestimate the burden of damages caused by the closure. I am not talking here only about the enormous economic damage, the unprecedented unemployment, the damage to the underprivileged population, the small and large businesses, but also to the damage to life and health. Each day, data is published on the increase in the number of people with the coronavirus disease and on the number of people who have died. But this is partial information that may be misleading. No one presents the number of those who are paying with their health, and in the near future also with their lives, because of their inability or deterrence from obtaining essential medical services these days. We do not know, for example, how many residents of the country will die in the coming years due to the non-disclosure of cancer or heart disease from which they suffer unknowingly, as public hospitals work at an output of 20% (other than for coronavirus patients). We also do not know how many patients who want to receive medical treatment and who are sent back to their homes will suffer. We also do not know how many patients who would normally go to hospitals for essential treatments are prevented from doing so because of the fear of death, although the risk of the coronavirus is negligible compared to the risk they are in. This is before we talk about the rise in domestic violence, the loneliness of the elderly and the impact it has on their health and lives, the mental health of the entire population, the nutritional damage that may befall entire families whose breadwinners have been fired and forced to change their dietary habits as a result, and more. I hope that the decision makers perform the cost-benefit analysis in a complete and exhaustive manner.”

“I am not really the helpless type, but I have never been very fond of the sort of aggressive scholarship that is now encountered everywhere, trying to sell to humanity brand-new laws of nature as if they were used cars. A feeling of tentativeness; an appreciation of the provisional and fragmentary character of human insight into nature; a consideration of how much arrogance and rashness must attend even the deepest understanding before generalizing statements can be made about life: all this will be part of the inheritance with which the many years have burdened the scientist as he grows older. If he is any good, he will become more modest.” (Erwin Chargaff, Heraclitean Fire)

“As soon as public service ceases to be the chief business of the citizens, and they would rather serve with their money than with their persons, the State is not far from its fall. When it is necessary to march out to war, they pay troops and stay at home: when it is necessary to meet in council, they name deputies and stay at home. By reason of idleness and money, they end by having soldiers to enslave their country and representatives to sell it.” (Rousseau, The Social Contract)

“We must learn to endure what we cannot avoid. Our life is composed, like the harmony of the world, of contrary things, also of different tones, sweet and harsh, sharp and flat, soft and loud. If a musician liked only one kind, what would he have to say? He must know how to use them together and blend them. And so must we do with good and evil, which are consubstantial with our life. Our existence is impossible without this mixture, and one element is no less necessary for it than the other. To try to kick against natural necessity is to imitate the folly of Ctesiphon, who undertook a kicking match with his mule.” (Montaigne, III:13, 835, Frame)

“Physicians have marked off a portion of their domain as psychosomatic medicine, thus giving the public the idea that whereas some diseases are altogether events of the soma or body, a few others regrettably stem from the psyche or mind. But no doctor has yet been found who ever saw a patient walk in as a free soma without a psyche, or vice versa. These simplifying doctrines suit our age, which seeks formulas for classification and control, faced as it is with a mass of men in unmanageable numbers and irreconcilable states of mind. Brainwashing, reconditioning by drugs or surgery, or in any other way forcibly manipulating behavior go with the theory of mechanical causation; each supports the other.” (Jacques Barzun, A Stroll with William James)